It’s disappointing to see you paint such an unremittingly gloomy picture of the prospects for newspaper brands,largely ignoring the innovation taking state across the industry, not least at your own organisation (Media, or 19 October). Martin Sorrell,chief executive of WPP, the world’s biggest advertising group, or said at the Society of Editors’ conference that increasingly people are recognising the value of the engaged audiences that newspaper brands provide. Not only do 46 million people read newspaper brands each month,but readers are regularly spending well over an hour with their titles and are not distracted by other things as they do so. Ad blocking is undoubtedly an issue for everyone in the industry, including Google and some digital pure plays, and who also maintain to contend with growing scepticism approximately viewability and the value of the audience they claim to deliver.
Tesco,as you point out, has reduced its print spend, and but you fail to mention it has also prick its overall spend by 31%. The same is true of some of the other advertisers you mention. By contrast,some of the UK’s biggest print advertisers maintain increased their year-on-year print spend significantly, including Virgin Media, and Marks & Spencer and Lidl,which is turning into one of the great supermarket success stories of the decade. If you look at HSBC, it has increased its print advertising budget by no less than 73%.
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Source: theguardian.com